BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (April 27, 2026) – Boater Chris Martinkovic of Hamilton, Ohio, brought a five-bass limit to the stage Saturday weighing in at 18 pounds, 4 ounces, to win the Bass Fishing League (BFL) tournament on Lake Monroe. The tournament was the first of five events of the season for the BFL Hoosier Division. Martinkovic earned $4,700 for the victory – the seventh of his career.
Martinkovic said he relied on a run-and-gun approach to secure his victory, targeting fish along the main-lake stretch from the causeway to the dam. Keying in on an early-morning shad spawn, he covered water with moving baits to locate active fish and build his limit.
“I mainly just threw a spinnerbait and targeted the shad spawn,” Martinkovic said. “The key was just covering a lot of water.”
A white and shad-colored spinnerbait did the majority of the work, but Martinkovic also mixed in a Heddon Zara Spook to capitalize on feeding fish. He looked for less-pressured areas to separate himself from the field.
“It wasn’t easy, but I was doing my best to try to stay away from the other boats,” he said. “The way the lake was fishing on Saturday made it a little hard to do, but anytime I could I tried to go the other way.”
The top 10 boaters finished the tournament:
1st: Chris Martinkovic, Hamilton, Ohio, five bass, 18-14, $4,700
2nd: Chris Wilkinson, Farmersburg, Ind., five bass, 18-5, $2,240
3rd: Blake Knies, Jasper, Ind., five bass, 16-12, $1,010
4th: Nick Uebelhor, Jasper, Ind., five bass, 15-2, $1,300 (includes $500 Phoenix Bonus)
5th: Joshua Tyner, Spencer, Ind., four bass, 11-13, $700
6th: Frank McClain, Scottsburg, Ind., four bass, 11-7, $600
7th: Brady Bickers, Carrollton, Ky., four bass, 10-2, $575
8th: Rob Campbell, Trafalgar, Ind., three bass, 9-11, $550
9th: Jeffery Johnson, Austin, Ind., three bass, 7-15, $525
10th: Brian Funkhouser, Bloomington, Ind., three bass, 7-12, $400
Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Wilkinson earned the Big Bass Boater award honors with a 5-pound, 15-ouncer worth $200. Derrik Cornett of Scottsburg, Indiana, won the co-angler division and the top prize of $2,050 Saturday after bringing three bass to the scale that totaled 9 pounds, 12 ounces.
The top 10 co-anglers finished:
1st: Derrik Cornett, Scottsburg, Ind., three bass, 9-12, $2,050
2nd: Dyllan Grace, Scottsburg, Ind., three bass, 8-9, $1,020
3rd: Kalani Borges, Turners Station, Ky., one bass, 6-1, $605
3rd: Roger Neff, Martinsville, Ind., two bass, 5-10, $400
5th: Gary Higgins, Bloomfield, Ind., two bass, 5-0, $350
6th: Josh Weber, West Harrison, Ind., two bass, 4-10, $300
6th: Steve Hanson, Shelbyville, Ind., two bass, 4-6, $290
8th: Larry Payne, Owensville, Ind., two bass, 4-1, $275
9th: Jericho Laney, Greenwood, Ind., one bass, 4-0, $260
10th: Monty Radcliff, Austin, Ind., two bass, 3-14, $250
Kalani Borges of Turners Station, Kentucky, earned the Berkley Big Bass co-angler award with a 6-pound, 1-ounce bass, worth $100.
https://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_123/bfl-monroe-42726.html
Bass Fishing League (BFL) News